Royals
by Spxcekiid
Summary: The war was over, the unversed were finally eliminated. But a new threat is on its way. Now the knights and mages must do anything they can to protect their kingdom. Fantasy AU. Xemsai. Akuroku.


**Here's a story I thought of a while back. It's still in progress so I'm sorry if it takes me awhile to update. I don't own Kingdom Hearts.**

It was early morning in the kingdom of Hallow Bastion, and the knights were doing their daily routines like always; making sure no crime was taking place, no rebels were inside of the castle gates, and that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Only a few months have passed since the war ended, and a few weeks since they found a cure for the plague. Even though everything was back to normal, the peasants outside of the castle gates were infuriated. The king had promised them he'd give them more food, and lessen their taxes once the war was over. The exact opposite had happened, the king giving the excuse that the knights needed to be tended to and the sick middle class people needed to be cured. This has made many of the peasants try to start an uproar, so the king had been cracking down and making the knights scope anyone out.

Axel trudged his feet along the small path that lead to the village. If there was one thing he hated the most it was these morning routines. _Honestly,_ he thought, _if he's really this worried he'd have more of us check outside of the gates._ He walked down, looking at all of the shops, and smiling and waving at a few villagers. That's when he noticed a small, hooded child, looking around suspiciously. Axel narrowed his eyes and quietly approached him; then he noticed he had a bag full of things.

"Hey kid!" He yelled out. The boy widened his eyes at the knight and quickly darted off, passing the guards at the gates, and Axel promptly ran after him.

After passing all of the slums of the neighborhood, the boy finally stopped at the mouth of the forest. He turned to face the knight, catching his breath. His bright blue eyes stared into Axel's own green ones, and he dropped the bag. "Please, sir," he breathed out, "my brothers and I haven't eaten in 2 days. And all of the food they're selling here is going bad. It's only a few pieces of bread. Please."

His voice was hardly even a whisper, and the look in his eyes made it hard for Axel to grab him and take him back to the kingdom to have him publically hanged.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Roxas, sir."

"Okay, Roxas. I don't want you ever doing this again. Or else I will have to take you to the king. And you nor your brothers will like the outcome."

Roxas smiled brightly and mouthed a thank you, and sat down and began to eat one of the loaves of bread that he stole.

"You run very fast. Fast enough to become a knight" Axel stated, hoping to give the boy an oppurtunity to become something more than just a theif.

"You think so?" Roxas asked, stuffing his face. "I want to become a knight. My 15th birthday was just last week. But I have two younger brothers, I can't leave them behind."

"What about your parents?"

"...The unversed killed them, sir. 5 years ago."

Axel looked back at the small village just outside of the castle "You'll die if you stay here." he murmured, remembering all of the stories that Xigbar had told him about growing up out here, and finally, for the first time in 17 years of his life, Axel knew what the blacksmith was talking about.

"No way, I survived this long, didn't even catch the plague! I'll be fine. I just gotta wait 8 more years for Sora to turn 15, then all three of us can join the brotherhood."

The young knight bit back his tongue as what the boys' dreams probably would not happen like that. The knight is extremely strict when it comes to peasants becoming knights, and would only let one at a time go through the process; a very deadly process that only few survive. Just as Axel opened his mouth to let out some encouraging words, a loud shout of Roxas' name was heard and the boy quickley stood up and looked back at the forest. Emerging from the trees were three figures; a very young boy with a mess of spikey brown hair, another boy, close to Roxas' age, who looked almost just like him, and another, older boy, who Axel knew all too well. The knight glared at him, but the blue haired teen just smirked and put down a huge bag of food.

"There, that should be good for a few days. Eat it sparingly but don't wait too long." the teen said.

"Thank you so much, Saix. I wish I could give you something in return."

Saix waved a wrist at him "Don't worry about it, it's the most that I can do, considering how much my fath-"

"What exactly are you doing outside of the castle walls?" Axel interjected, furious that the young prince came out of his quarters, with no guards or even Xemnas for that matter, escorting him, out from the mouth of the forest.

"Don't worry, Axel. I do this plenty of times."

" _Plenty of times?!_ How much do you sneak out, no _how long_ have you been sneaking out?!"

Saix scowled at the knight, "Why should it matter? I mean, I know I'm the prince and all, but do you realize how boring it gets up there? Dad won't even let me outside half of the time." he climbed up a branch of a tree, and leaned down, smirking at Axel. "Let me live a little. The war is finally over."

"That doesn't mean that there's still danger out here, Saix," Axel spat out, there were times where he didn't use the proper term to adress the young prince, considering the fact that they used to know each other long before Axel was a knight, and long before Saix with the next heir to the throne. "your brother-"

"My brother died in the war!" Saix spat out, making the young boys flinch. " It was his own damn fault that we hent into hostile territory without Lexeaus."

Axel sighed and leaned against the tree. Nothing would go through the stubborn prince's head. His personality seems to have gotten worse after his older brother died. The red haired knight looked up as he saw Saix climb further up in the tree, followed by the boy with the nappy brown hair. It wasn't long until he heard the prince scream out, "Holy shit, Axel! Come take a look at this!" 

Axel gave Roxas and his other brother a look of concern, and the three of them began climbing up the tree. He couldn't help but widen his eyes to what he saw: clouds. Dark, purple and black clouds, miles away, surrounding the castle in which they fought the evil worlock.

"Do...do you think it's Ansem?" Roxas asked?

Axel shook his head, "Ansem is dead."

"But what if someone resurrected him or something?" the smallest boy asked.

"Don't be foolish, Sora," Roxas stated, "Who would want to resurrect that man?"

"Doesn't he have brother somewhere?"

"His brother is one of our top mages and one of my personal body guards," Saix stated, very hastily, "He would never go against the kingdom like that."

"Xemnas never really liked the guy in the first place, anyways." Axel said, still looking at the clouds, squinting as he saw a dark figure flying towards them, "Anyone else see that?"

Before any of them knew it, the creature was inches close to them, biting onto Saix's arm. Saix let out a yell before quickly grabbing the creature, and breaking his jaw. "What the fuck is this thing?!" he yelled out.

"Is it the unversed?!" Sora cried, hugging onto his two brothers. Axel grabbed it from Saix, and looked for the heart shaped symbol on its chest.

"Well, it does have a symbol, but certainly not the Unversed's" He showed it to Saix, who squinted. The Unversed symbol was a blue jagged heart, that sort of looked like a V. This one, was much different. It was a red heart, with a black X crossing it. "We need to go back to the kingdom. Tell the Mages. In which I'm sure they'll be thrilled to find out that you've been out here"

"Save the scolding for Xemnas and my father." Saix snapped, getting off the tree, along with the others.

Axel looked at the three boys, giving them a worried look. "Are you sure you will be okay?"

Roxas nodded, "We can take care of ourselves. It'll be fine." He smiled up at Axel, who couldn't help but smile back, and nodded.

"Just be careful, and no more stealing. The other knights aren't as nice as I am. Got it memorized?"

All three boys nodded, before waving and running off west from the village. Axel began to follow, wondering how they would avoid all of the peasants and not cause an uproar when they see Saix, but that's when Saix grabbed his arm.

"Not that way. I know a shortcut."

He walked into the forest, Axel reluctantly following.

 _What am I gonna do with this kid?_

 **That's it for chapter 1, hope you liked it. Please fave and review!**


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